


Breaking Point

by Hanna



Series: Prompt fics [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lots of Angst, kinkmeme prompt, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 19:10:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hanna/pseuds/Hanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki is increasingly cruel to Thor during battle, his words more poisonous, but Thor has a thick skin. Until one day his words break through.</p><p>Written for the kinkmeme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this kinkmeme prompt: http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11065.html?thread=23458105#t23458105
> 
> My first fill for the kinkmeme, which I have recently begun browsing and collecting prompts to fill. I really should not have started this in the month I do my final exams.

**Breaking Point**

He'd heard it all before.

"I am not your brother!"

"I remember a shade- being stuck in your shadow."

"Odinson."

He tried to argue each time, but Loki was the wordsmith, always had been, and the only way he could shut him up, make him stop saying such things, was to attack him. It was the only defence he had, he'd only ever been able to physically silence his brother. Normally these didn't affect him so. But this time...

"Thor Odinson," a hundred Lokis sneered. "The golden son of Asgard. A foolish boy who cannot even protect the world he so claims to love. So weak." The others were used to Loki slinging such words at him, and didn't even look at him. The words stuck in his heart and he momentarily forgot how to breathe. He took a deep, long breath to calm himself.

"Brother," he called, voice breaking. "Brother, don't say such things." Loki's face, all of them, broke into ugly snarls that he so wanted to erase from his memory. Whatever happened to the sweet little boy he'd grown up with? The brother he knew? Had he changed while he was too busy being self absorbed? Guilt stabbed at him.

"I am not your brother!" Loki snarled, the words echoing from a hundred faces, hitting him from all angles, hurt and furious, and this time, the words he'd heard so often hit him with the force of Mjolnir. He stood stock still, shaking all over, his mouth hanging open, tears pooling in his eyes.

It was at that moment Tony chose to swoop down and shoot at one of the Lokis, but his beam passed right through him. Maniacal laugher filled them.

"Honestly, Thor," Tony complained. "Your brother is an asshole." Thor snapped into action again at that, fury congealing within him, and he raised Mjolnir and brought her to the ground. The shockwave sent Loki- the one real Loki- flying back and the others vanished. The other Avengers (apart from Tony, in the air) were also knocked off their feet.

Tony took advantage of the opportunity to shoot at Loki, who teleported away.

"Shwarma?" he asked hopefully as the others climbed to their feet. Thor felt the urge to smash Tony into a pulp, to finish what he had started in the forest, for just an instant before he strode away, thunder rumbling dangerously close to the group. The others stared after him.

XX

He barely made it to his room in time. His anger had abated into fierce misery and he collapsed on his bed and drew his knees around himself, trying as hard as possible not to cry.

It was easier if he focussed on the slight Tony had delivered his brother, and very suddenly, painfully, Thor was shot with the unwelcome revelation of how Loki had become so bitter.

But he never had held anger long, so it died fast, and he was left with just his gut wrenching misery and the words that Loki so often screamed at him that nullified a thousand years of brotherhood- a thousand years of him being a truly awful, neglectful older brother.

"I am not your brother!"

Unable to hold it in any longer, he broke down in tears, slumping on the bed, burying his face in his pillow.

XX

"Hey, big guy?" Tony knocked tentatively on the door and Thor's anger shot up again. Long since he'd stopped crying, but the shameful evidence remained clearly on his cheeks, as he'd been too exhausted to get up and wash his face. He didn't reply.

"Thor?" Tony sounded concerned, and this time, he replied.

"Leave me," he said curtly, voice muffled by the pillow his face was still buried in. There was a pause.

"You alright?" Tony asked. "I mean, Loki didn't say anything worse than usual today, and maybe I shouldn't have called him an asshole but he really is, you can't deny it-"

"I said," Thor snapped, raising his head, and thunder crackled warningly overhead. "Leave me!"

Tony backpedalled on the other side of the door.

"Sir," the voice of Tony's artificial intelligence said, "Thor is disinclined to receive visitors at this time."

"So I see," Tony said. Thor sat up, lips pressed in a thin line, and held himself ramrod straight. He wished Tony would leave. Tony was his friend and he did not want to hurt him, but if he persisted...

Suddenly he had an image of Loki screaming at him again, and realised that he was behaving disturbingly like his brother when he'd barricaded himself in his room after Thor had a joke with Sif and the Warriors Three that Loki was inevitably the butt of- his womanly use of magic, that he was likely ergi- and that Tony pounding on the door again was far too familiar, he'd had no sense of personal space as a young man.

He couldn't stop himself. He started to cry again, great, wracking sobs that shook his whole frame.

"Open the door, JARVIS," Tony said, and the intelligence did. Tony poked his head in.

"Thor?" he asked, and Thor couldn't muster the energy to be angry at him- he wasn't angry at him. He was angry at himself. He didn't reply, just turned away. "Big guy, you're scaring me."

"Leave me," Thor whispered. "I wish to be alone." Tony hovered awkwardly in the door.

"Was it what I said about your brother?" he asked, twisting his hands in the air before him. Thor just shook his head.

"No," he whispered. "It does not concern you."

"But I am concerned. Everyone is." And who had been concerned about Loki? Certainly not him. He choked down on a fresh sob. "Okay, big guy, look, I'm sorry-"

"I am an awful brother," Thor said brokenly. Tony paused.

"What? No, you're not. You're a great brother." He clearly bit down on insulting Loki, and Thor had the presence of mind to appreciate it.

"I appreciate the sentiment, but it is untrue. I am an awful brother. I never gave him enough attention." The matress shifted as Tony sat on it and awkwardly patted Thor's shoulder.

"I'm sure that's not true," he tried.

"It is," Thor said. "I never paid him attention. I always enshewed him for Sif and the Warriors Three. He was always the butt of our jokes. My jokes." His voice was almost quiet. "I always started them. And when he needed me, I was..." he paused.

"I was never there for him." A broken sob escaped Thor. "I have failed my own brother, Tony. How can I protect Midgard?" Tony was silent, shifting his weight.

"We all make mistakes," he said finally. "You were just a kid, Thor. I know you feel bad but... you're a great brother. I don't know anyone else who'd be this determined to save someone who had hurt them."

"I hurt him first," Thor said. Tony sighed.

"I'm sorry, Thor," he said, and rose. "If you want to come down..." he swallowed audibly, then padded out the room. The door hissed shut.

"Sir?" the intelligence asked, and Thor just shook his head and sobbed, burying his face in his pillow.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and say what you think!


End file.
